Our tour guide, Diego, was great! He knew everything, years, names, artists, dates, etc. Very impressive. 1st we went to the new end of the city to the north. Recoleta where we saw many monuments that were given to Buenos Aires in 1910 as a gift for the centennial anniversary of their independence. One of the most beautiful and interesting was the monument to the flowers. Floralis Generica, a huge metal flower whose petals open and close with the sunlight.
We drove further north to Palermo (these are all neighborhoods of Buenos Aries city) Where all the gardens are. A Japanese garden, botanical garden and the zoo, where apparently the enclosures are a temple from the area from where the animals come. Snakes are in an Egyptian temple, elephants in an Indian temple, etc. A cool idea, hopefully the execution is as good. So on back into Recoleta to the cemetery. This is a plot of moseleums squished together in the middle of the city.
Beautiful tombs for the rich people in Buenos Aires with 10 coffins each, each going down 5 meters deep. Beautiful ornate stone work or metal work.
Crosses, statues and lots of stray kitties.
It was really a beautiful place, and would be REALLY freaky at night. This is where Eva Peron is buried. Her body was originally embalmed and buried here. Then when the new government took over, they wanted to remove every symbol of the old administration and she was the biggest one, so her body was kidnapped and not found until 17 years later when Juan Peron finally found her in a cemetery in Italy under a different name. They moved her back to Buenos Aires and back to her tomb (which was quite understated than the others) and made it so she wouldn’t be disturbed again. A very very cool cemetery.
Back on the bus and we headed down to Ave 9 de Julio (July 9 was the day of their independence) toward Plaza de Mayo. There is a TON of traffic and driving is very slow going. Ave 8 de Julio is about 12 lanes across at least, and cars go very close to eachother. I wouldn’t want to drive here. We went around the obilisque to the Plaza where “the Pink House” is (where the president works, and where government officials used to address the people on the Plaza, including Evita.) The old city hall was when the Spanish were in control (a striking white building)\
and the cathedral where San Martin is buried.
We got to get out and cruise the square for 20 minutes. You could buy seed and the pigeons would climb all over you- so we did! It was half gross and half fun.
Cool to have a bird in my hand again. Then we took the last 7 minutes to run through the cathedral. A HUGE and beautiful church, mosaic floors, gold alter and San Martin tomb, a huge gold tomb with 2 handsome guards. We walked quickly through and ran back to the bus.
Then we headed further south to the poor area of town. La Boca where the houses were made of corrugated metal and painter very bright colors.
We walked around there for 35 minutes, washed hands after the pigeons, got some pesos and shopped I got myself a very cool bracelet and some La Boca juniors stuff. La Boca juniors are the local soccer team and their colors are blue and yellow like the Swedish flag. Anders told us this story and the tour guide told it again. Apparently the founders of the team couldn’t decide on the team colors, so they argued and argued and finally decided to go down to the docks, and the color of the flag of the next ship that passed would be the colors of the team, and a Swedish ship came through.
There were Tango dancers in the street, dancing and taking pictures with tourists, bright colors, street vendors. Cool place but very tacky and touristy.
Back on the bus and they headed us to Puerta Mediero where they dropped us off so we could have lunch. We found a restaurant near the one from the night before and had a delicious lunch. It always takes a while for the service to begin, but once it did, we were drowning in food and bread. Again, we ordered too much food, but it was all delicious. When you sit down, you automatically get a little tray with 4 or 5 little nibblers. I had some panqueques with Dolce de Leche for dessert and that was delicious. Jerry, Rom, Muhamed joined Anders, Karin, dad and I and we had a great time.
Muhammed is from Labanon and works in DC for NOAH. He started running marathons in 2000 and has done 75 already. (1 year he did 16) 50 states, and 25 other marathons. Rom and Jerry are on their 7th continent, Anders has done 130 marathons (and some ironmans) Karin did 1 (NYC) because Anders said she couldn’t do it. I’m a mild marathoner in this group!
After lunch, we decided to see if we could figure out ferry tickets to Colonia in Uruguay. We stood in the longest line only to find it was the wrong line, and we had to go stand in the Ventas (sales) line. So we did, finally got the the counter and fount hat Wednesday’s seats were all sold out, but Thursday was still available, but we couldn’t buy tickets without our passport. 45 minutes and nothing to show for it. Well...we did learn how to work the boat ticket purchase process. So we headed back to the hotel, changed into our workout clothes, met Anders and headed back down to stand in the correct line! Dad held out spot in the cashier line so once we did our reservations, we were in the front of that line. So tickets in hand we headed out for a run. Anders probably could have gone twice as fast, but we stayed together and despite the heat, we had a really nice run. Back to the hotel at 6. Dad was still on his walk so I hopped in the shower (still red faced and sweaty) and got dressed for the evening and here I am! Dad ended up walking around the whole park and didn’t get back until 6:40 I was starting to get a little worried but decided not to send out the search party until 7. He went in and kept saying “I’ll turn around at 15 minutes…I’ll turn around at 20 minutes…” well, by the time he decided to turn around, he was half way through the park anyway, so he decided to keep going. He eventually made it back safely with 2 beers! He’s a good traveling companion. So anyway, quick, shower and we headed down to the cocktail party, grabbed a beer and found Rom and Mohamed, Anders and Karin and had some chat. Met Dion and Pete and chatted with them for a bit. Chatted with John Bingham who gave us the good advise to let the trip happen not to run to every whale, and every penguin because you miss things you left behind. I’ll try that but I’m pretty excited to meet a penguin! I also met Andrew, the expedition leader from Peregrine (the boat company) for the Vavilov, (the other boat. We’re on the Ioffe) Then it was time to go into dinner. We sat with our crew, and Jacques (1st time marathoner) and his dad Gerry Lopez multi-million marathoner who slyly talked me into the JFK 50 miler in MD in November (which 75-marathons-in-7-years Muhammed has done 6 times.)
So then the evening started to speed up and things get fuzzy. The wine was flowing (my glass was NEVER empty despite my ongoing efforts to make it so….the waiters were TOOO attentive) Dinner was delicious (didn’t we just eat?) and Thom talked for a long time. I was talking to Cindy and Brian at another table during it and we got hushed by a nearby table, so I went back to my seat. I awoke at 5:55 this morning and spent the next hour and a half reviewing the evening and hoping I didn’t embarrass us too much. I drank waaaay too much. Cindy had run into me and spilled red wine on my pink shirt (it needed to die anyway) and my white skirt (bummer). So I will cool it with the booze for a bit. Repeat after me….”Agua con gas…Agua con gas” yup – good stuff. So it was fun to meet people last night. There were some marathonning freaks on this trip! FFFFFREAKS! My friends think I’m crazy, but they ain't seen nothing yet!
I’m laying here eating a meal replacement bar, feeling quite rough, but dad didn’t seem too mortified – so I guess I didn’t embarrass us too much. Fshew I’m really glad we’re not going on the boat to Colonia today and glad dad is into a slow morning. We downloaded pictures, weeded some out, dad wrote his log and now is down in the lobby taking advantage of the free wireless connection while I’m catching on my journal in my jammies. I suspect when he returns he’ll want to get moving, so I should probably get dressed. Lessons learned:
Don’t get wasted on vacation on the first night you need a bunch of people you’re going to be living quite closely with for the next 2 weeks
There are some amazing people in the world, and the body is capable of amazing things.
Again, I contemplate the “never drinking again” option. We’ll see. Ouch!
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